Writer's Corner

1. Characters

1. Characters:

Complexity:

I’ll be starting first with what you as an author should know about your character. You’re basically giving birth to a fully grown person without the pain...well maybe mental pain. You should know almost every detail of your main characters so you know what are appropriate reactions to situations. This is where psychology comes in handy. 

If you want your character to react by cringing away from physical contact, (which btw it’s good to have a plot [series of events] planned out before everything else) then your character is probably has trust problems, and you can work with that to develop your story. 

Psychology doesn’t come easily to most people, but use common sense. Your character can’t go through a traumatic experience and be fine afterwards. They will have some type of mental trauma, e.g., trust issues or irrational fears. Otherwise, the story will be completely unbelievable.

You should know the character’s physical appearance, e.g., hair, eyes, scars, bone structure, body type, everything. (Going back to common sense, if a character has a big bone structure, they could see themselves as fat. Developing appearance helps developing the mind of your character too. Note that not everything has to be for a reason...like liking starchy banana’s. You’re allowed to be random :P) 

Also, knowing what routines your character has will develop their personality. If a character has a routine for every day, then maybe the rest of their lives is a hot mess. If a character only eats oats for breakfast, then they’re probably obsessive in another part of their life. These are all simple things that translate into deeper things that make us as humans complex.

ALSO, (last one I promise) you should know about the upbringing of your character. Childhood is very impacting to a person’s personality. Ex: Parents are/were workaholics = lonely child that has trouble socializing.

Cha - Plot Premise and Theme first:

I think that before I go onto the next point, I should explain the proper definitions of plot, premise, and theme first since that is important before Change in your Characters. 

lot: a series of events that make up the story

Premise: the idea behind the story; what the author is writing about

Theme: the sense of purpose in a story; the lesson learned

(Note: the theme is not the subject (true love) but the statement the author makes about the subject with the story (true love overcomes everything).

Change in Your Characters (for reals this time):

Your characters have to have an emotional/internal plot line too. (That’s why plotting is so important; it sets the base for your entire story.) Every character goes through two journeys: physical and internal/emotional/abstract/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

***

http://headdeskforwriters.blogspot.com/2008/07/knowing-difference.html 

^.^ where I got the plot, premise, theme definition ^.^

I thought this was gonna be really long and I would have to write a sorry note at the end about how it’s long but important....turns out it’s not as long as I thought :D

KBAI!